Everything you need to know about running and life and any other random crap I find bouncing through my mind like a ping pong ball. And always be sure your shoes are happy.

Perspective

I woke this morning still tired, still coughing, still sniffing, and still not running on day 12 of the Cold from Hell. I did a bit on the treadmill at Killer’s on Friday but had to keep slowing so I could hack up more of my insides. We have a huge yard for which I’m extremely grateful, the beauty, the trees, birds and squirrels, very blessed. We spent two hours yesterday raking leaves and got about 1/20th of the yard done. Today is the last nice weather for most of the week and I will not be doing yardwork as I have to work. I’m going to be doing the damn leaves until May. Hubs’ idea of doing leaves is vacuuming up the stuff in the flat part of the yard with the mower and filling a garbage can weekly, sometimes getting a couple extra bags filled if he has enough time. His spare time weekly totals about 3 hours so you can see that at that rate we’ll be done doing the 2013 leaves in about 2018. I’m watching my body age and change and I don’t like it. I don’t like how clothes fit differently. I don’t like that everything is sliding slowly, inexorably, toward the floor. I don’t like feeling even more tired even more often. Hubs asks, why are you so tired? I DON’T KNOW. The cat is peeing in that spot on the carpet again which indicates the UTI is no better or she’s stuck in a bad habit. Since she’s also bogarting the floor heating vent I’m going with the UTI. I don’t know what else to do. I keep a huge towel in the spot, the only compromise I can come up with unless I throw the cat away, which some people might suggest but it kinda goes against my personal theology to throw away living things which fail to meet my expectations, although I will indulge my occasional and extremely poor coping mechanism of throwing several very loud F bombs around the house. This probably only serves to create more peeing when I scare the cat with my screaming so there’s another fail.

I am stuck in a funk.

The idea of coaxing anyone out of a funk by showing them evidence that someone else definitely has it worse is, to me, ineffective. If you are having a bad day, you’re having a bad day. Who knows what else is going on in someone’s life? Who knows what else is going on my life? (Right, not a very good personal argument since I spew my life all over the interworldweb like I currently spew coughs, but we’ll assume a lot of people do have things in their lives about which we are not aware.)

This article is copyrighted by the Commercial Appeal and I’ve linked the article in the quote above.

I’m not much of one to ask people to donate money, however, if you are currently considering supporting St. Jude, please consider doing so through Kevin’s page.

Meanwhile I’m going to get things ready for today’s race. I’m going to wear my Adidas to the race and I’m going to get a little jog in this sunny day while the runners are out on the course. If I have to stop and cough a bunch of crap out, tough sh*t. When I get home I will rake leaves for whatever daylight remains. The cat can pee on the towel, we’ll all live through it, and I will once again move the towel 6 inches closer to the litter box every couple days until she’s back using the box; it will probably cost about a minute of my life.

11:15am update: Heading to the race site. When I first looked at Kevin’s page he was 12% of goal; he is currently 16% of goal!

Sorry about the crappy sickness.
Thanks for the link to Kevin’s page.
Also, if a little distraction helps, check out my friend Jeremy, who is running cross country. He has a public page on FB called Pretty Big Run. I’ve never seen as much gratitude as this guy has.

Thanks! I will check him out. I cannot imagine doing that. This guy: http://stagerunning.com/tag/mike-samuelson/ lives a couple blocks from me. I don’t really know him other than he organizes a 50K trail race here every year, but I see him running a lot in our neighborhood. Again, just cannot imagine the effort, strength (physically and mentally) and commitment it would take!
Yeah, the cold is just using up my energy I think. It will pass. I spent five hours outside in the sunshine and I think I should be taking some extra vitamin D. I’m tired, but I feel so much better having been in the sun. With your winters do you have to take extra D?

Yes to the extra D. I take 2000 mg and a B Complex. Both help, or, at least, I notice it when not taken. I’m also doing a HUGE overhaul of my diet. I’m tired of feeling tired. I need more stuff than I can get in a pill (that’s my usual M.O.). I won’t bore you with the details. I read Finding Ultra and am trying some of his suggestions. I’m working (in my mind) on a post about this. When the temps here leave the realm of the Arctic Circle, I’ll thaw out and start writing again.
Glad you’re writing lots lately.

Have you checked into chromium picolinate? It could just be mental but I feel I do have more energy when I take it. I got a B shot one day, but I got the “wrong” one, it was a “vitachrome” which is B with the Chromium picolinate. I didn’t think anything of it but a couple days later I realized I had much more energy. So I bought some and take it. I googled Finding Ultra, it’s a book? Have you checked out Matt Fitzgerald, Racing Weight? I got the cookbook, it’s awesome – so many quick and easy recipes with tons of veggies and there are vegetarian options. I’m eating many more veggies with these recipes.
Keep me posted!
HA on the writing – it still surprises me anyone wants to read my ramblings, but the writing helps me 🙂